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"Mr. Littler found it in Grand Hotels of the Jazz Age..." · Oct 17, 10:53 AM

“There’s been much better news on the artistic front in the Sherry-Netherland’s little jewel box of a lobby. A water leak in June compelled workers to open a section of the vaulted ceiling. There, under layers of off-white paint and plaster, they were greeted with intense blazes of color: the remnants of a mural that originally adorned the lobby.”

“The provenance of the mural is not clear and it isn’t a major artwork in its own right. But to judge from a photograph published in “Grand Hotels of the Jazz Age: The Architecture of Schultze & Weaver” (Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), it was a delightful complement to the lobby’s ornate features.”

“Mr. Littler said the hotel’s longest serving employee, a bellman with 38 years of service, recalled that the mural was intact when he was hired. “Then there was a serious leak over the elevators,” Mr. Littler said. “Perhaps for budgetary reasons, they decided to paint over it.”

Here is the book Mr. Dunlap is talking about…

Grand Hotels of the Jazz Age
The Architecture of Schultze & Weaver
Marianne Lamonaca

The Breakers, the Waldorf, the Biltmore, the Sherry, the Pierre—these landmark hotels are synonymous with grand luxury and style. When they were built, in the 1920s, their refined elegance and grandeur set the bar for hotels and resorts the world over. Responsible for creating these and countless other hotels throughout the United States, were the partners of a single architectural firm: Schultze & Weaver. Together, this duo—an architect and an engineer—virtually invented the glamorous lifestyle made famous in films like Grand Hotel. Catering to the social elite of which they were themselves a part, Schultze – Weaver synthesized the Old World style of Renaissance Italy, Moorish Spain, and Georgian England with all of the modern amenities that made hotel living luxurious.

This book presents portfolios of fifteen of the firm’s most spectacular hotels, culminating in the Art Moderne masterpiece of the Waldorf-Astoria. Over two hundred period photographs and hand-colored architectural renderings chart the ascent of the American hotel in all its glory and glamour, before the Great Depression forever changed the lifestyles of America’s rich and famous. Essays address the cultural and technological developments that underpin the creation of resort and residential hotels, including the elemental role played by Schultze & Weaver.

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